The Butcher of Taurajo

Description

This operative had orders to secure the roadways between the Alliance command and Fort Triumph. General Hawthorne is on the move.

<Bloodhilt crumples the documents in his fist.>

It's HIM, <name>! Hawthorne - I spit the name - he is the one who ordered the assault on Taurajo! Now we know when and where to strike him down. Quickly, follow the road north of the Battlescar and meet up with my assassin Karthog. CRUSH Hawthorne and string his body up along the road!

<Upon hearing the news, Bloodhilt snorts. His eyes gleam. He tips his head back and bellows a wet, cackling laugher that echoes between the blackened walls of Desolation hold and reverberates throughout the hills beyond.>

So it is done! The Butcher of Taurajo is felled at last. Cut down in the streets like a dog. Fitting.

You have done well, <name>. You've sowed fear into our enemies, and soon we will reap the harvest!

Comment by MightyDuck

Comment by Saufsoldat

Next time your home town is attacked at night and people around you are getting slaughtered, let me know if you were thinking that maybe the attackers left a gap in the lines and if you were expecting to get through there unharmed.

I'd say Hawthorne got what he deserved.

Comment by Coruth

You say Taurajo. I raise you:

The Farming Community of HillsbradNow a macabre mess of plague ridden bodies stitched together because the Horde is an honorable foe that respects life and people's right to live in peace in their own lands.The Village of Southshore A place that found it more sensible to fight ogres and syndicate than bother the Forsaken. Too bad they didn't resurrect an avatar of vengeance in their neighbor's graveyard as Tarren Mill did to them. Sucks for not being prepared for plague holocaust, yes?The Village of Astranaar Where a sick child resides. Don't forget that her cure is being harvested because Horde decided to chop down the ancient, Bathran and harvest his hair like a crop.The Dabyrie FarmsteadBasically "They're alive! I'm dead! They should be dead too! Kill Kenata and her entire family, bring me their heads so I feel better!", yet another senseless slaughter just because the Forsaken are butt hurt for being dead and that everyone should be dead like them.Eastern AshenvaleWhich is now an unrecognizable mess of ancients and trees that were cut down by the Horde. Nobody even remembers what that area looked like anymore because all the Sentinels and ancients there were killed by a demon-blood-slurping jerkwad with genocide on his record whom the Horde still worships.Maestra's Post Where an orc warlock and entire army is bombarding 3-6 Sentinels defending a bunker filled with wounded troops. Don't forget the murder of two ARGENT DAWN members. Don't forget the constant taunts about how night elf blood is easy to spill and that all night elves should flee to Darnassus and cower. Funny how orcs froth at the mouth about bravery and this guy is standing on a tower behind an army.Thal'darah GroveAnd all the children within. Cause if what Hawthorne did doesn't count, I'm pretty sure Garrosh came in to save face with the tauren, not cry over dead night elven children. I highly doubt that the guy who doesn't do anything about the Forest's Heart being corrupted and who is leading lumber operations in the entire north of Kalimdor (Including Felwood while the Emerald Circle is trying to heal it) as well as an imperialist war mentality to take over a continent gives two %^&*s about kaldorei innocents. The guy practically allies with Shatterspear in the north JUST to kill night elves while they're busy trying to recover from Auberdine's destruction. Forget kicking someone while down, that's literally beating them with a baseball bat while they're on life support.Silverwind RefugeUsing water elementals driven insane by an undead mage that's standing atop Dreadmist Peak surrounded by Burning Blade... Then gloating about how the several night elf guards and civilian vendors tried to flee before turning the place into a goblin slum with enslaved furbolgs, as well as quests to collect more furbolg ears while the Refuge's former inhabitants left to rot under orcish boots. Do I have to say anything else?

Sorry, but the Horde had it a LONG time coming. At least Hawthorne had enough decency to go against what even the Alliance High Command would have preferred, bending over backwards to allow Horde civilians to flee, despite Taurajo being a staging ground for the Horde invasion into Ashenvale and beyond. These wounds were opened first by the Horde. Hawthorne even sends you in there to arrest those looters FORCEFULLY, saying that they are soldiers and not common bandits. I wonder what would be said if the Alliance had been doing what the Horde has for the last 5 years? The crying and the whining would be legendary.

RIP General Hawthorne, and all the innocents, even the Horde ones that the Alliance tried to help.

Comment by Angurn

To complete the quest head to the spot marked on your map, an orc named Karthog(48,58) will be standing by a tree talk to him about ambushing the General. The tree is by the northen tip of the battle scar

Comment by Liriael

Hillsbrad: A renegade who was executed. Gee, the alliance have never had a renegade they've had to execute, have they? Because everything is all nice and pleasant when the Alliance run things. Garithos? Admiral Proodmoore? No? It's genocide when we do it, when you do it it's cleansing, right?

Southshore: Valuable port. This is war. We may have been a little overzealous, but this is war - not to mention Lordaeron's land - a kingdom that is still intact, despite what the nay-sayers in Stormwind have to say about it.

Astranaar: Because the night elves slaughtering orcs without negotiation for the termacity to harvest a natural resource is completely faultless and correct, simply because they like their forest and they don't want outsiders messing with it. Why don't they move up to Felwood? Oh, they can't, because it was corrupted utterly. By demons. Who they invited to Azeroth. "Oh, but that was the Highbourne, not us!" Night elf mages are in-game right now. You made your bed, we need lumber, now put up with it. Attack us, and you'll get attacked back.

Farmstead: She's a walking corpse and her family stole her stuff. I'd be a bit bitter too.

Eastern Ashenvale: Look at how Turaylon and Alleria in particular thought on orcs before you start pointing fingers about bloodthirsty advocates of genocide.

Maestra's Post: A tactical outpost. This is war.

Silverwind Refuge: A sound plan to take it, and the mess is cleaned up afterwards. The elementals are dealt with and the outpost belongs to the Horde. We use it against you. You don't have to like it. And don't act like you've never killed a furbolg. They aren't exactly cute and cuddly.

TL:DR version Blizzard wants us to hate each other, and they do a damn fine job.And incidentally, back on topic here, Hawthorne or whatever dies and the people who take over from him immediately go IT'S WHAT HE WOULD HAVE WANTED NO MERCY and use his death to incite even more hatred and atrocities. The noble alliance indeed.

Comment by zim57398

Maybe the Orcs & Forsaken have it coming for all those things, but the Tauren?

Comment by thottbotrules

lmao! if it wasn't for Hawthorne, Southern Barrens would already be alliance controlled! be lucky you could quest in the same zone as that dude.

Comment by Coruth

Hillsbrad: What exactly are you smoking? Does Varimathras ever imply that the Battle was a secret from Sylvanas? Hell Bragor Bloodfist himself (an orc representative) applauds you for what you've accomplished. Where's Garithos' legacy in the Alliance? Yeah, zero. I love that whenever the Horde does something bad, they either know nothing or have no control.

And don't talk to me about the genocides in game. Jaina allowed her father to be killed to honor the treaty. If you blame his vigilante mindset on the Alliance, then I'll happily blame the Blackrock on the Horde in addition to your Scourge 2.0 allies. Sound fair? K.

Southshore: "Little overzealous" my rear end. The place is a toxic wasteland where not even a single crop will grow unless the Argent Crusade and Cenarion spend another five years clearing that place up. Even the Scourge haven't pulled off something of this magnitude. Bears have spiders growing out of their ass for crying out loud. And you're damn right it's war. War the Horde started long before Varian snapped. The Forsaken have been waging war since day 1.

Astranaar: Oh yes, the typical "Night elves brought the Legion" argument. Night elves have spent 10,000 years making up for that mistake. You hate the Sundering so much? Kick out blood elves.They JUST accepted mages after all this time and the ones now are the Shen'dralar, and have expressed their regret and desire to redeem themselves. You want to play hard ball though? Then man up for the destruction of draenor, near extinction of the draenei and being the tool of the Legion for years and bringing nothing but misery to Azeroth; as opposed to fighting the tyranny of that harlot Azshara and her lackeys and then being the guardian of the natural world for thousands of years to atone for the crime your leaders did. Which one is better? (Hint: Pick the obvious one)

Orcs were freed what, 15 years ago? Forget night elves who caused a catastrophe, the orcs freaking blew up a planet and have brought nothing but war to another. Already they go back to using demons in the defense of Splintertree. The demon may have fooled them, but it was never Durak's idea to corrupt the heart of the forest or to use infernal power to avoid defeat in a fair fight, color me shocked, didn't see that coming. The orcs don't need corruption, their intentions are TWISTED enough. And I'd love to see what orcs would do if night elves came to Oshu'gun and started chipping away at it to build a Temple.

Funny that you mention Felwood. The only Horde presence there is goblins whereas the Alliance one is druids. Even the furbolg have different quest dialogues because they're really sick of the Horde. Sorry, but your logic of "you attacked us first" doesn't fly, at all. Tell the Frostwolves to stop squatting on dwarven and human land then, at least when the dwarves came, it was an unarmed expedition force to dig up the relics related to THEIR past, on THEIR planet.

Farmstead: Don't give me the whole "stealing" crap. She lets the Horde member who does the killing actually keep what they have, and even said she doesn't care for those belongings. Be emo and hating the world all you want. But once your "bitterness" means slaughtering a family just for the sake of murder you can go walk off a cliff. I never thought claiming the belongings of those who are dead just for your survival warranted the collection of your family's heads. Especially if their reason for slaughtering your relatives is cause they're having undead PMS.

Eastern Ashenvale: Because orcs coming through a portal high on demon blood viagra, shouting and slaughtering everyone wildly while still holding the near extinction of the draenei under their belt (as well as paving a road of their bones, naming it the Path of "Glory") is equal to night elves shooting orcs that are killing wisps and cutting down their homes. Last I checked, it's more than just night elves fighting you, it's Ancients, spirits of the land, and the very animals.

It's not night elves that don't want you.It's the land itself.

Did you even play Warcraft 3? You probably did, but just like every die-hard Horde supporter you block out and try to justifty that you don't like. Why was Grom even sent to Ashenvale? Let me give you a hint.

Grom: I can wait no longer... the humans MUST be slaughtered.Thrall: Have you lost what's left of your mind Grom? I gave you a direct order to leave the humans alone! What the Hell is wrong with you?Grom: Don't lecture me pup! The wretches deserved death!

Deserving death for simply existing. I'm sensing a pattern.

I'm sure night elves coming in to ask nicely for Grom to stop would have yielded far different results, surely. You're beating a dead horse by crying victim while trying to play tough with the "You shot us first!" line.

Meastra's Post: Nobody denies its war. Just try telling that to the Argent Crusade regarding the deaths of Feero Ironhand and Delgren the Purifier. The Horde is simply protected by plot armor. Maestra isn't even a military base. It was a gathering area for druids, priests and paladins to stage attacks against the demons in Ashenvale.

Silverwind Refuge: Sound plan to take it, eh? Tauren aren't cute and cuddly either, but that's genocide, amirite? Why am I not surprised this is coming from the same folks that waited until the Alliance attacked the Scourge, then hit them from behind? Here's what the Alliance did in a similar situation back in the Burning Crusade. Pity they didn't know what their "allies" against the Legion would do to them in Northrend.Enemy of my Enemy...

The Alliance didn't enjoy it, but they did what was necessary. THAT is Honor. Actions speak louder than words, and that's all the Horde does, foam at the mouth about honor while doing the complete opposite, or pointing finger at demons.

And you honestly keep attaching Hawthorne's name to "hatred" and "atrocities"? The Horde is honestly accusing the Alliance of war crimes? After 5 years of brutally torturing and murdering any and all Alliance captives, farming humans for skulls, poisoning the land and pillaging what is not theirs and allying with the Burning Legion? Really?

The Horde loves to cry victim and ask for "vengeance" when in fact they're the cause of the misery.

And on that note. Sorry to dissapoint, but I don't hate you. But I severely disagree with you, even if my tone may have sounded harsh. I left the Horde exactly for this reason. I'd be perfectly fine with the Horde if their players weren't in denial about what their faction does. It's a sad day that the faction I started this game with is the embodiment of all I despise.

@Zim 57398:

I still love Cairne, Hamuul and the likes of them. But the tauren there had no qualms with helping the Horde's invasion into Ashenvale even before this Cataclysm. In the immortal words of Jorn Skyseer who sends you to participate in the Great Ashenvale Hunt.

The forests of Ashenvale represent a vast untamed wild that the Horde seeks to impose its own will upon, both politically and spiritually.

It seems the Earth Mother can go suck it if it's not tauren land being defiled.

Comment by Strings

Well, interesting discussion and all. A lot of factoids and bits of lore I didn't know.

Basically the Horde is bad.

Which is true. I figured when I created my first character as Forsaken, that choosing a zombie like character who can eat dead bodies as his racial, would likely fall somewhere south of the neutral area.

That being said, there are 'good'(Those who have their sense of honor and try to follow it) forces within the Horde. Leaving Thunder Bluff Baine Bloodhoof told my Tauren Pallie

Much has changed outside of Mulgore, <name>. The world is torn, and our Horde allies have turned down dark paths. We must guide them. Even in the darkest hour, we will bravely hold our heads high, and honor the Earth Mother in all we do.

You must go, <name>, and be this example. Go to Orgrimmar. Tell Warchief Hellscream how the Grimtotem were driven out. Let him know our pride and discipline, our strength and sorrow.

Tal at the Skytower will send you on your way. Go in peace, and never forget your people.

From there, and doing the starter quests in Silverpine, it started to give me a sympathetic view on the Forsaken's objectives(ie They were here first, they didn't ask to be turned into zombie slaves of the lich king, and they'll do whatever it takes to keep what they see as 'their' land and freedom).

Granted having Drek(from AV) chew me out for helping the Forsaken did help me decide on going to non-Forsaken area for my next quest:So you have come seeking our aid?

I... *cough* I have been alive for a very long time. In that time I have seen and done terrible things.

Things that still keep me awake at nights.

But these terrible things that I have done and the people that I have harmed - I know them... I face them... and I feel remorse for them.

But the Forsaken. *cough* What do they feel?

They ravage the land and destroy everything that they touch. How many lives have been lost to their vile poisons?

How many innocents have fallen before the Forsaken war machine?

Countless... countless lives... *cough*

Yes... I have done terrible things, but nothing could ever be as terrible as lending aid to the Forsaken.

You go back to that spineless orc who would not come see me and you tell him that the Frostwolf clan will not aid the Forsaken. Not now, not ever!

BEGONE!And after doing a quest where you were given the option of killing or freeing humans that were buried up to their necks(Do the Right Thing) it's not hard to see where Drek's coming from.

Overall the Horde is going to be evil, but Blizzard has put enough NPCs, and events into the game that the players can sympathize with them, and feel betrayed when the players see (from their point of view) Alliance marching in, burning and razing a Hunting outpost, driving the survivors out into a relatively hostile area chuck full of racial enemies. Plus the Horde sees the village full of looters(who kleptomania is unknown to the Horde and so they assume they are normal Alliance) who might desecrate the victims bodies.

TL:DRThe Horde is made up of your stereotypical evil races.If you want to do quests where you can make heads 'asplode' roll Horde.Still, there are good, or at least honorable members of the Horde, so Blizz can direct players sympathies.

Also, please leave our cow people alone :(

Comment by Strings

Again, interesting points, my main comments of mine are above.

Main thing in this post I would debate is

Taurajo being a staging ground for the Horde invasion into Ashenvale and beyond.

Aside from being on the wrong side of the barrens to stage an invasion, the Tauren seemed more interested in events in Southern Kalimdor.

Camp T. would be easier to compare to Westfall. I don't know the Lore behind Westfall, but both are a good distance from the other factions Capital, and they are one of the first villages that you are able to reach after leaving the starter zone. Well, in this case 'were able to reach'.

RIP Taurajo. May your death fuel gamer rage, world pvp, and nerd spats across the internet. ;)

Comment by jonboyh

I like the Horde's way of assasination.Run in screaming "Blood and Thunder"

Comment by Vaalsha

General Hawthorne and Ambassador Gaines at Forward Command are two Alliance questgivers. General Hawthorne regrets the fact that his conscripted convicts decided to loot Turajo and has you arrest them on the grounds that they're only going to increase faction tensions when the end goal of this war ought to be the start of a lasting peace.

Ambassador Gaines makes quite plain that he thinks General Hawthorne is a soft touch. He advocates genocide against the Quillboar and claims that there can never be peace with the Horde based on their past relations with the Alliance.

As the Alliance players hand in some intelligence gathered from Turajo, Gaines discovers an active warrant for the General's death. As in, the Horde are out for him in a very real and serious way. He says this is "very interesting" and nothing further happens.

General Hawthorne, the nearly pacifist commander surrounded by a number of warmongers and possibly the only person in the Barrens with the power to make sure the war doesn't turn into a revenge fueled bloodbath for both sides, walks into a Horde "trap" with only two bodyguards.

And just to rub it in, the good General's replacement is General Twinbraid. Who's only son the Horde unwittingly killed when they attacked Bael Modan. To which he responds to by collapsing a mine on top of its workers and promising to destroy the Bilgewater Goblins.

Everybody loses in Southern Barrens and this is the quest that does it. The Horde got played. Good going Gaines, you ass.

Comment by Slye20

The Barrens were our (Horde) land first, the Alliance have no right to be there (even though the Horde most likely attacked the Alliance first)

Comment by Silmafarion

I think you're taking this a liiiiittle bit too serious. And FYI, Garrosh personally killed Krom'gar for bombing that druid sanctuary. He said and I quote: "Was my command to murder innocents, Krom'gar?" "I sent you into Stonetalon Mountains with an army. Your orders were to secure this land for the Horde. Instead, you laid waste to the land. Murdered innocents. Children even..."

Sorry, but not all Horde are monsters who kills innocents and destroys innocent alliance towns. Both factions are at war because they misunderstand eachother. Bloodhilt thought Hawthorne destroyed the town for no reason. But of course, the alliance thought that a peaceful hunter camp was a training ground for horde soldiers, so I guess they had to act. But there were INNOCENTS at Taurajo, something that does make an orc thirst for swift and merciless vengeance upon someone. Can't say I didn't enjoyed killing the looters and the alliance soldiers for what they did. And I must admit I enjoyed killing Hawthorne, but that was before I knew the whole story behind it all.

All to all, if it's something Garrosh/the horde won't tolerate it is murdering innocents. Whatever faction

Comment by Silmafarion

Sure, let's all be evil. All roll horde and be evil. That's what horde is for, allright.... -:-Do you really think that all the Horde is doing is murder innocents? Talk to the more hateful forsaken and the small portion of war-crazed members of the horde about that.

Comment by Silmafarion

Bu then againyou DO have a point.The Forsaken does solve their problems in a.... macabre way

Comment by tanadrin

Blizzard's goal seems to be fairly obvious--portray the moral ambiguity and chaos of war in a realistic fashion. You don't get the whole story unless you do both the Horde and Alliance quests, which makes sense; the real story of what happens in war is never as simple as it seems. They also seem to want excuses to inflame the hatred between the two factions as much as possible. Logical, given the history of hatred on both sides, and the fact that it's a major source of plot and gameplay in WoW. Certainly they're effective: I've never wanted to tear Alliance NPCs limb from limb quite as much as I did after I completed the Horde quest Honoring the Dead. I suspect when I finish the Gilneas starting quests I'll have a similar reaction toward the Forsaken.

Comment by altalemur

I agree with Tanadrin pretty hard. I was really upset after the Hawthorne thing, and learning about the quest to kill him. But after reading the comments about the quest chain, and Horde vs Alliance, it became pretty obvious both sides cover up their own actions by saying "this is War and it was necessary" while exaggerating the bloodshed by the enemy.

Bliz is doing a pretty good job of portraying war as ambiguous. But it's doing it in a very subtle way, since not everyone will do both sides of these quest chains. Most players will only learn that their side is the good guy, and the enemy is the bad guy. Only if they're open to the idea of two-sides, and play Alli and Horde, will they learn more about the ambiguity. I'm not sure if that's a really good lesson, or a terrible and ugly truth.

Comment by Thaag

To be fair...dwarves have been defiling sacred Tauren sites without so much as negotiating with them. Yes, the dwarves are doing this for science, but they also treated the Tauren as if they were nothing but beasts, and refused to talk to them, going so far as to traipse straight into Mulgore to go a-digging. The Tauren *tried* to open talks with the dwarves. The dwarves in turn said, "Meh. Pagans," and kept swinging the pickaxe.

Let's put this in real-world perspective. An old, historic church in Missouri is found to have solid evidence of Atlantis under it. Harvard's archaeology team comes by, demolishes the church in the middle of the night without notifying anyone, then uses the wooden pews and the altar to build bonfires. When the parishoners complain to Harvard, the university scoffs at their quaint beliefs. "Meh. Christians." How are the locals going to feel and react?

And worse, the dwarves have done this twice, once in Southern Barrens and once in Mulgore.

Comment by Sebiale

I was almost certain that it was Ambassador Gaines who had engineered Hawthorne's death until I saw this quest :S

Comment by Roxxy

Comment by Kathayla

It is reasonably nice that Garrosh finally did something about one of the lunatics that he promoted, but if you've actually talked to ANY of the horde generals under Garrosh in WotLK, the actions in Stonetalon were TOTALLY in line with them. Just because he finally did something about one of them when it was directly in front of him doesn't really give him props.

And while I've been enjoying most of the storyline to date, the entire reason they have the storyline running like this is to make up for TBC and it's 'why exactly are we still at war?' storyline. Most of WotLK was trying to do that, and failed pretty badly because most of the antagonism was simply contrived or stupid. (The 'We must beat the other faction out for the privilege of attacking the lich king!' thing remains one of the most absurd plot points ever) They finally managed to do a good job at it in Cataclysm, so if nothing else you have to give Bliz props for that.

As for this quest: Makes sense from the horde perspective in a a very unfortunate manner, and Ambassador Gaines needs to get a stormhammer upside the head.

Comment by Samourne

Oh lawdy, there's a lot of logical fallacies being thrown around here. Everyone comparing battle scars, go and google 'and you are lynching negroes'. It will enlighten you as to how to argue.

Hawthorne was written to be the good guy here, but Blizzard are trying to create tension and argument (success!), so he had to die, as unfortunate and wrong as that is.

Comment by Perstephane

Thank you to the people who posted giving help on this quest. I appreciate all the debate, and it's great that people get so into the lore, but having to read War and Peace to get to a bit of help is ridiculous.

Comment by LoveallJames

It is unfortunate that General Hawthorne was killed although I can understand why he was targeted for assassination (hint: "General").

However, I would like to see a quest (or chain) where Ambassador Gaines is found out to have known about the assassination attempt beforehand and did not bother to tell the good general.

Would be nice if an Alliance-side quest also found out about his undercutting the general's command for petty revenge.

A nice twist would be a Horde-side quest that reveals the General's actions to the Horde (captured prisoners, anyone). Would be interesting to see the reaction (no, not sorrow, he was a general after all ... but maybe respect).

Comment by Xothic

Basically;

The Forsaken: *!@#ed up. Very very $%^&ed up. Whatever mercy/empathy they had in life seems to be completely devoid in death. There is even the Forsaken "Doctor" in Southern Barrens that has you cut off the limbs off dead soldiers (Horde AND Alliance) just so he can make his abomination.

Orcs: Complicated and slightly hypocritical honor code. Most of their actions have some level of justification, assuming, of course, that it was the direct orders of Hellscream, and not some stupid general Nuking towns.

Tauren: Fairly tranquil in nature, want to convince the Horde to take more noble paths to victory, or at least less violent.

Troll: Yo man, da mojo.

Blood Elf: Lol Sunwell.

Basically, BE's and trolls need more racial development.

Comment by 4dehorde

@Coruth---- If you ask me, you Alliance monsters got just what you deserved at Southshore and in Ashenvale. The Alliance has gouded the Horde into war since the game came out, and now they got it. And they can't take it. Varian is a warmongering bigot who cares more about feeding his hate than feeding his poeple. That is why there are so many homeless in Westfall now. The Alliance cares only about conquest and murder of so-called "lesser peoples". The Horde is about honor and unity. General Hawthorne may have ordered his troops to spare civillians, but they didin't. Those sick bastards murdered little orc and tauren children. A quest proves it. The Alliance are seriously starting to remind me of Nazis. That is why I hunt them at every chance I get. No mercy for killers!

Comment by Davicus

Taking it too far? Nah, I don't think so.

Really only for one reason. A lot of people get invested in this stuff (rightfully so, it's story, that's what it's there for!) and willfully ignore facts and make really poor moral judgments. Having serious discussions and making excuses for evil is just... sad. If only because it happens in real life so often.

The Forsaken are absolutely, irrefutably evil, the Blood Elves and Orcs somewhat less so (Mu'ru, leper gnome slaves, Hellscream, ...). Trolls are established in lore as racists and evil, but from what I've seen in WoW the main troll faction is pretty chill.

Tauren... there's the sticking point. They're really awesome, by most all accounts. The trouble is, they ally with and aid all of the above (including/especially the Forsaken), all in the name of "honor."

That is very much not a western definition of "honor" -- it's more Eastern/Middle-Eastern. And for the Tauren, well: it's a special kind of hurt when someone with a decent moral compass turns and helps someone who has none (the compass or morals).

Coruth is dead on. /salute

Comment by anarchyz

Karthog is at 48,58 under a tree just off the road.

Comment by Marathan

Now, really. Just passing by - This "4thehorde" guy definitely loves the Horde, to the point that he's becoming a troll IRL. Not a Darkspear, though - he's more like the ones of the forum variety.

Just take a look at all the comments he's done around Wowhead. Everyone that has a word that goes against his opinions is called "sick", evil and whatever else. According to him, every single villainous act done by the Horde is pure and justifiable for some dumb reason, while even the small things done by the Alliance are unforgivable. He even says at some point that the Alliance must be destroyed! Wouldn't that imply in killing several innocents in the process?

Well, I can't actually believe I wrote more than a single paragraph on this subject. It's nice that people got a favorite Warcraft faction, but going as far as outright believing they have higher morals and are allowed to do ANYTHING is just ridiculous, not to mention it reveals a person with a pretty... shallow life outside of the game.

But, very well, then. The Forsaken are just misunderstood lil' rotten saints (even though they've told us more than a hundred times how they want to kill and plague EVERYONE on Azeroth), the orcs are perfectly allowed to commit warcrimes on a world that they don't even belong to because the Alliance attacked a Tauren camp, and I'm going to guess 4thehorde's main is a blood elf, just for good measures. Y'know, you guys wanna be Horde while still looking pretty. *cackles*

Nah, actually... I'm being silly here. Just get a life.

Comment by Marathan

Haha. RPing a Horde-loyal Forsaken is just kind of wrong, sorry. The Horde is for orcs, trolls, Tauren and goblins. The rest are more like their allies.

And I just felt like pushing the discussion a little lower to see if it would calm people down. Guess it doesn't work when they are well prepared. Congratulations, we'll keep this peaceful for now.

Comment by taurenmoo812

This is just bull%^&* overall.

Basicly, to milkfeed alliance fanboys that they are the good guys, and can do no wrong, all they need to do it have some twisted bastard order the murder of innocents, and just throw in a counterpoint of 'oh I didn't mean for them to die, sorry' which makes people feel sympathy for him.

Screw that. He is the one responsible for the murder of those innocents, so each time I'm flying over the place on an alt I fly down just to enjoy killing this son of a %^&*!.

Comment by TheHeroOfTheDawn

As an ally, I feel no Sympathy for Hawthrone. He didn't do his job as proper. Shoulda killed them all, maybe then the info would've not been withheld and he'd be alive. Sucks to be him, letting the civilians escape.

Comment by Fojar38

I was hoping for information on the quest but all I found was factionwanking.

/sigh

Guys, 4dehorde is an obvious troll. Bury his posts and move on.

Comment by RageTreb

Here's an idea: We'll leave Eastern Kingdoms if you Alliance leave Kalimdor alone. Seriously, the Barrens? Were you just really bored one day and thought, "I feel like we should conquer something."

Comment by arabian

Blizzard just sometimes tries hard to put up some good reputation to the Horde factions, but we all know, Alliance and Horde, that the true good-seeking side is the Alliance, and I can argue about this forever. The only reason someone is defending the Horde is because it was their first faction to play since long time, so it's only loyalty keeping them blind enough to belief that the Horde are the winged archangels that only seek good deeds and help the poor while the Alliance are the big bad demon spawns who deserve to be slaughtered and only seek to destroy.

I first played Horde, but I realized how bloodthirsty, filthy, greedy and stubborn they are, and that the Orcs NEVER changed after being UNWILLINGLY cured with the aid of humans actually. They will forever remain like that. Why? because they were the ones who chose to be changed into the fel orcs in the first place.

The Horde's only known language is violence and slaughter, and history prove that Varian and Tyrande, although good hearted, are VERY fluent at this language.

Comment by Nimoku

I've been wondering, is this quest maybe a reference to the "Butcher of Blaviken" considering both Geralt (from the witcher series) and Hawthrone only slew the ones that according to them, who deserved it, leaving innocent civilians alone and a way to escape?

Comment by Shurhaian

I've played Horde and I've played Alliance. Prior to Cataclysm, my impression of the Horde was that it had its share of bloodthirsty zealots, yes, but it was certainly not unique in this.

First point: Not all of the Horde orcs chose to drink demon blood. Even disregarding the possibility of coercion, some of them - such as Thrall himself - are the descendants of orcs who drank demon blood, and did not get to make that choice themselves.

Moving from there: Once the demon blood was rendered inert by killing its progenitor, the orcs reacted to their past deeds in different ways. On the one hand, you have people like Saurfang the Elder, who can't even bear to eat pork because the sounds of swine being sacrificed remind him too much of children screaming, and countless others who were unable to live with their past actions and committed suicide. And others whom Saurfang was able to reach and save, or who may have recovered on their own.

And you probably have others who, having been monsters, could really only live on by remaining, on some level, the same sort of monster. It's twisted, yes, but the mind works in odd ways sometimes.

And then there's Garrosh Hellscream, who went from being a mopey and ineffectual good-for-nothing apathetic whiner when first encountered in Nagrand to pushing for full war against the Alliance on the Lich King's very doorstep without demon blood as an excuse. That degree of bloodlust is, well... almost human, honestly.

As for the rest of the Horde, the Forsaken are the worst by far. Duplicitous, vengeful, genuinely evil - I admit I generally avoid doing Forsaken quests because they're so utterly vile, but the main non-evil Forsaken I can recall were those in the Argent Crusade or similar organizations. The blood elves start out misguided, but by the time of the Shattered Sun Offensive they're seeing how thoroughly they've been played - and considering what the Alliance did to them and especially to Kael'thas (back before his deal with Kil'jaeden) in the later stages of the Third War, they have no reason to love the Alliance at all, so it's hardly a betrayal on their part. The Darkspear trolls have, by and large, been gentled by their association with Thrall and the rest of the Horde - they still have their dark mysticism and may well harbor darker secrets still, but Vol'jin is sane enough to recognize a greater threat and reach out to everyone about it. (And scant thanks he gets for it, too. "Can't these trolls fix their own problems?" or whatever it is the guard on the Stormwind docks says.) The tauren? Main thing they're guilty of is being too nice, holding out hope in curing the Forsaken when the Forsaken aren't even willing to give it an honest go. Goblins? Let's consider that scenario: Thrall was en route to try and deal with the aftermath of the Cataclysm. Alliance forces attacked his ship. The remnants of the Bilgewater cartel came into view and the Alliance captain ordered them blasted out of the water for no more reason than their being there at the time.

Rewind a touch from the Kezan incident, and go to Northrend: Horde and Alliance forces unite, however tenuously, at the Wrathgate. Both are betrayed by Putress and, through him, Varimathras. Alexstrasza herself urges peace. Wrynn's response? He, the king of Stormwind, wants to seize Lordaeron. Never mind that Lordaeron is and has been the home of the Forsaken, he wants to take it over wholesale while they're still reeling from Varimathras's betrayal.

And Wrynn in general is prone to demonizing every damn thing the Horde does, especially in extending every unpleasant thing that happened to him during his time as a captive gladiator to the Horde as a whole. As if the Alliance doesn't have its unsavory elements. As if the Defias Brotherhood didn't figure largely in his initial capture - an organization which, remember, largely rose because the nobles of Stormwind wouldn't pay their masons a lousy copper for rebuilding the city. Orcs under Doomhammer may have razed the place at the end of the First War, but Thrall (himself kept captive from infancy for a human's amusement as a gladiator - quit your whining, Varian) had nothing to do with Stormwind's nobles stiffing their workmen.

Before Garrosh, yes, the Horde still had its warts, but aside form the Forsaken, it actually had more to respect in it than did the Alliance. Garrosh has of course shifted that balance, but the Alliance can still do some bloody abominable things (like, say, pursuing genocide on the Revantusk trolls - probably the most peaceful tribe of forest trolls that hasn't yet been eradicated - for no other reason than "we've hunted trolls around here for years", and only moving on to the Vilebranch tribe, trying to corrupt the entire Hinterlands, after the Revantusk have been heavily blooded). And the Alliance is even faster than the Horde to point to every evil thing anyone in any of the Horde races have ever done (orcs in the Twilight's Hammer) while ignoring their own races' bad apples (humans and gnomes in the Twilight's Hammer).

Short version: No, the Horde isn't perfect. Especially not with Garrosh in charge. But to tar them all with that brush while whitewashing the sins of the Alliance races is just daft.

Comment by Olympius

Karthog's specific location is 48.18, 58.18.

Comment by Mushalor

If you're like me and spent too much time backtracking through comments and quest chains just for the sake of a piece of leather transmog gear, this might be useful.

The full list of pre-requisites in order to get to this quest ("The Butcher of Taurajo") are as follows:

Start with Bad to Worse from Makaba Flathoof (must be at least level 30). He is located in Southern Barrens at 42, 33--just west of the Overgrowth on your map.

Then turn around and pick up A Family Divided from Tawane (who is in a hut at the same camp). Turn this in to Kirge Sternhorn at Vendetta Point, in order to pick up the follow-up, A Line in the Dirt.

Make sure to also pick up from Tatternack Steelforge (in the same camp) Meet the New Boss